10 Principles for Improving Government Transparency

The Sunlight Foundation just dug up some interesting recommendations from Vivek Kundra’s testimony before aHouse Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee today. Before the committee, he proposed 10 Principles for Improving Federal Transparency. We felt they were smart, so we’re reposting it below, as good advice to all levels of government.

1. Build end-to-end digital processes – Automate transfer of data between systems to increase productivity, protect data integrity, and speed data dissemination. Capitalize on game-changing technologies to increase transparency.
2. Build once, use often – Architect systems for reuse and share platforms to reduce costs, streamline systems and processes, reduce errors, and foster collaboration.
3. Tap into golden sources of data – Pull data directly from authoritative sources to improve data quality, shorten processes and protect data integrity.
4. Release machine-readable data and encourage 3rd party applications – Make data machine-readable to allow the public to easily analyze, visualize and use government information.
5. Use common data standards – Develop and use uniform, unique identifiers and data standards to ease the flow of data and reduce system complexity.
6. Validate data up front – Correct errors during collection and at the point of entry to block bad data from ever entering the system.
7. Release data in real time and preserve for future use – Release data as quickly as feasible to enhance its relevance and utility while maintaining future accessibility.
8. Reduce burden – Collect data once and use it repeatedly. Pull from existing data sets to reduce costs and burden and to increase productivity and uniformity.
9. Protect privacy and security – Safeguard the release of information to increase public trust, participation, preserve privacy, and protect national security. Open Government doesn’t mean vulnerable government.
10. Provide equal access and incorporate user feedback – Provide a common view of data to all stakeholders to foster collaboration. Incorporate user feedback to help identify high-value, meaningful data sets, set priorities, to continuously drive and improve future planning and processes.

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